Category: SEO

How the Covid-19 Pandemic Will Speed Up Digital Transformation for Small Businesses

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many small businesses have been forced to change how they operate on a day-to-day basis. Whether that be finding new suppliers, changing how they deliver their product to customers or any other change, there is no doubt that Covid-19 has changed the lives of small business owners across the country. However, not all changes during this time are immediately noticeable. While many small businesses have chosen to become more involved with technology to continue their business model, what they do not realize now is that many of these changes will become permanent even after the pandemic is over. The Covid-19 pandemic will surely speed up the digital transformation of small businesses across the country for years to come.

One of the main ways that small business owners have already seen a speed up of their digital transformation is through employees working from home. Even though many small business owners have the ability to let their employees work from home, many still choose to require them to work in an office space or building because that is the traditional work model that has lasted for hundreds of years. However, times are changing. As technology continues to progress, many jobs that could only be done in person a decade ago can now be done from the comfort of an employee’s home. The Covid-19 crisis has forced some employer’s hands, with stay-at-home orders outlawing the gathering of more than a certain number of individuals in one space. While employees are working at home, many small business owners realize that this model is actually more cost-effective in many ways. First of all, allowing employees to work from home can save money because less office or building space is necessary. This extra space can be used for an alternative purpose or sold altogether. Additionally, many employers have found that employees are even more productive when they can work on their own schedule at home. Even when the pandemic ends, it is likely that many small business owners will speed up their digital transformation by allowing many of their employees to work from home full time.

Digital Marketing Likely To Play A Larger Role In Small Businesses

With many in-person meetings and conferences being canceled, some small business owners have decided to conduct these events online via video streaming apps. While many small business owners shy away from this method of communication before, they now realize how convenient and helpful it really is. Instead of choosing a mutual meeting point, with some of the small businesses’ employees and customers being forced to travel long distances, every one can meet to conduct important business from the comfort of their home. Additionally, this digital transformation will help the environment by limiting the time employees and customers need to travel via car, plane, train, etc. Even after normal life resumes, many small businesses will choose to hold important meetings over video conferencing apps, as they have realized how convenient it is.

Online Meetings and Virtual Conferencing Likely To Grow in 2020 and Beyond

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many small businesses are spending more time developing unique software that will make running their business online a lot easier. Of course these decisions were spurred by necessity, but the improvements made now will certainly be used for years to come. Some small businesses are converting a lot of their business model online. Other small businesses which were already online are spending more time improving their operation. Without even realizing it, small business owners are speeding up their digital transformation which will pay dividends even after they are able to resume business as usual. While some small business owners will certainly opt to return back to their old business model after the Covid-19 pandemic ends, many innovative employers will use their new technologically advanced strategies to improve their business in the coming years and decades. Without even realizing it, many small business owners have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to speed up their digital transformation.

How Citations and Backlinks Help Build Your Business’ Trust Profile with Google

If you own a business and participate in any form of online advertisement, citations and backlinks through online business directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, or Angie’s List can be either your best friend or your worst enemy. This is because citations and backlinks can make or break the success of your advertisement campaign. Without proper citations and/ or backlinks in online business directories, your business will have a poor trust profile on Google.

A strong trust profile on Google is crucial to any business with an online presence. Google’s trust profile is Google’s way to determine the legitimacy of your business. A strong trust profile on Google will let Google know that your business is serious and not just an online scam. However, if your business has a poor trust profile on Google, they will have no way of knowing if you are running a legitimate business, and therefore will treat you accordingly. Not too much is known about the complex algorithms involved with Google creating a business’ trust profile. However, from what is publicly available, it is known that business citations and backlinks help improve the strength of your trust profile.

Small Business and Local Google My Business May Gain Visibility Through Good Citations

Trust profiles on Google specifically are so important because Google is the most popular medium for searching on the internet. If your business has a strong trust profile, Google will push its advertisement or home page farther up the page when a potential customer searches for services that your business offers. This will lead to more clicks on your business’ home page, which therefore results in more customers requesting your services.

Citations Are A Key Part Of Local SEO Services

Citations and backlinks are the easiest way for you to help build your business’ trust profile. However, there are a variety of factors to consider when deciding how to approach creating either citations or backlinks.

When considering where to use citations, you may want to target well known online business directories such as Yelp or Yellow Pages. Because these are so popular, your business’ citations will be seen by more people. However, because so many businesses use these directories for citations, the field will be very crowded. You may instead choose to use a directory that is industry specific. Although these may be less frequented, you can be sure that anyone who sees your site will be looking specifically for your services.

Backlinks are also very helpful in building your trust profile on Google. Backlinks are simply links from one webpage to another. The more backlinks your business has on reliable websites, the more likely it will have a strong trust profile on Google. Backlinks can be especially helpful because they can grow naturally if your business is very reliable. Although you can create your own backlinks to promote your business, if a customer has a particularly good experience with your business, they can link your business’ home page to their own website. In this scenario, your business will be getting both a free referral and a boost in its trust profile on Google without any work on your end.

5 Tips For Marketing Your Plumbing Business Online in 2020

Are you keen to gain more customers for your plumbing company online in 2020? The online world is constantly shifting. Here are some of the best marketing tips that will help you find success in the digital realm.

Deliver The Right Content

When you are creating content for your plumbing business website, you need to consider the latest search trends. Over the last two years, there has been a significant increase in both smart home devices and voice control software. This has allowed people to become more direct when searching on Google and other engines. Rather than typing a keyword, they are more likely to deliver a full question. This provides a fantastic opportunity for businesses to create content around answering that question.

That’s particularly true for the typical plumbing business. Many of your potential customers will often search Google for the answer before they call in a professional. By delivering content that is helpful, you can also direct a user to contact your business for the right level of support. You can use the content to deliver value while also presenting the dangers of attempting a DIY fix.

The trick here is to ensure that content does match a high standard of quality and seek out the most frequently asked questions, you can do this by exploring the recommended searches in Google related to target keywords and phrases.

Improve Your Website

Content is just one of the ways that you can improve your plumbing website. There are various other steps you can take. The aim of SEO will always be an increased level of traffic. When exploring how to improve the site design, you will be focusing on the issue of conversions. Ideally, you need to ensure that you gain the greatest levels of conversions possible.

Generatore More Plumbing Leads in 2020 With A Proactive Digital Marketing Plan

You should also ensure that you work to reduce your bounce rate. This is the rate of users that are leaving your site without committing to a sale. Your site should have the right structure. Ideally, it shouldn’t take users more than three clicks to find any page on your site. You can achieve this through the correct use of links.

It should also be easy and straightforward to find the answers that users want or potentially arrange a service. One of the best ways to do this is with a chatbot. A chatbot can answer various questions and also connect a user to an employer of your business when they are ready to commit to a service or find out more information.

Get Reviews

If your business doesn’t have any reviews this is always going to lead to issues. It suggests that you are either new on the market, inexperienced or untrusted. Alternatively, a customer might believe that you are hiding negative reviews. Remember, more than 80% of users will seek out reviews before committing to the purchase of a product or service online.

To gain more reviews for your business, you simply need to ask. You should do this once you have completed a service for a client. It is possible that they leave a negative or mixed review. You should not avoid or ignore negative reviews. Instead, you must handle them and offer to fix the issue. You should do this with a public response somewhere like Google Reviews. This sends a clear message to potential customers and clients that you are prepared to address issues.

Get Mobile Responsive

The majority of customers will now be using a mobile device to view your business website or search for a solution to their issue. You must ensure that you are prepared for this. You can design your site to be mobile responsive. This means that it will load on different devices and still provide a great solution to customers. You should also check to ensure that the site is loading quickly on a variety of devices.

You can also consider using a call-only ad. Call-only ads are perfect for emergency situations. They will appear on a smartphone with direct click-to-call functionality. This means a user won’t need to waste time filling out a form.

Think About Google Business

Finally, you can’t underestimate the importance of search engines when gaining new business. If you want them to find you, you need to set up the right Google listing. This is easy to do and it’s just a case of ensuring that all the information is correct. You can add more content here to make it valuable to different users.

We hope this helps you gain the results you want for your plumbing company.

Google’s Record Revenue Is Propelled By Adwords

Google (GOOG) on the Nasdaq reached record highs this week as the company reported over 27 billion dollars in revenue for the third quarter of 2017. The companies record revenue is being driven by explosive growth with the you tube platform and advertisers using Google adwords.

Google adwords continues to be the dominant revenue generator for the company and industries such as water damage have seen a 25-50% increase in the CPC or cost per click in many markets across the United States over the past 24 months. In markets like Denver Colorado the average CPC for water damage is now in excess of $85 per click. The service industry continues to feel the pinch from Google and their desire to favor ranking directory websites such as home advisor, thumbtack (a Google prooperty) and the yellowpages. With directory websites holding many top ranking positions, it reduces the potential for consumers to make buying decisions in the Organic space and further positions adwords placements in key CTR areas, helping to drive engagement and the potential for consumers to interact in these areas.

With Google holding a monopoly position in the United States in search, the likelyhood they will continue to find ways to drive revenue growth likely means that they will continue to diminish the position available to business in the organic space and make it harder for SEO companies trying to promote hyperlocal businesses against dominant directory positions.

3 Tips for Improving Your Search Engine Rankings in 2017

There are several factors that Google take into account when ranking a website. No one knows exactly what factors are being used for ranking a website but you can try various SEO tips to get your website rankings moving up in Google in 2017. The following are 3 tips on how you can get your website ranked in 2017.

1. Keyword Optimization for Every Webpage
Optimizing your webpage with the right keyword is important if you want people to easily find your website on the search engine. You should invest in a good keyword research tool to look for keywords with high conversion rate. It is best to look for long tail keywords with 4 or more words as these words have lower competitions. Most of the short tail keywords are reserved for authority websites only so new websites that want to rank on the search engine should be optimized with long tail keywords. The keyword should be something that your prospective customer is looking for. Keywords should be mentioned in the content, content title and meta tag. You should also blend in your keyword into the anchor text of the external link that is pointing to your site.

2. Spying on the Competitors’ Sites
You must spy on your competitors’ websites and find out information such as ranking position in the search engine, number of backlinks, popularity of the sites that link to them, keyword used in the webpage title, and MozRank. You should find out how much traffic your competitor is getting and how much of the traffic is organic or paid. If the traffic is coming from from organic search result, you must find out the keyword that they are ranking for. You can go through your competitors’ websites to find out what type of content you should also include on your website. By spying on your competitors, you will know how to optimize your website and outbeat their search engine ranking.

3. Make Sure Every Post is Long and Detailed with Relevant Content
Typically Google’s search engine likes to rank pages that have long and detailed content. You should try to make your post long and cover as many information as possible. Most of the authority sites that rank on the first page of the search result have long post. For example, Wikipedia comes up on almost every keyword that you enter into the search box because almost every entry in Wikipedia offers thousands of words of high quality content that is rich with information. The ideal length of the blog post in 2016 should be at least 2,500 words. If you cannot come up with any idea on producing the in depth content, you can visit your competitor’s site and take some of their ideas.

Should Your SEO Company Help You Optimize Your Google My Business Listing?

Many local SEO companies are offering Google My Business listing optimization services for small businesses in the local area. Google My Business (GMB) refers to the search result that shows the local businesses operating in a particular area. It will include a map with red balloons to show the shops located in different places of the local region. It provides information about your business address, closing hour, reviews and directions in going there.

Google My Business used to be known as Google Places or Google Local in the past. GMB listing is vital for small businesses operating in a particular region because many people like to search locally when they are looking for shops that sell the products and services they need. Most of the people that arrive on your site by searching on a broad region are unlikely to be your prospective customers. The advantage of getting your website ranked well in the GMB listing is that it will enable you to get a lot of free traffic from the local search result to your website. These free traffic have high conversion rate as they are customers that are likely to buy.

You have to submit your business information on the Google My Business site in order for it to appear in the local search result. The local SEO company will fill in the correct information and choose the right category for your business at the Google My Business website. If your business has been listed on Google My Business for a long time, you may get a request that ask you to resubmit your business information. The local SEO company can resubmit your site to get it verified again for the Google My Business listing.

If you hire a local SEO company, there will be expert staff managing your GMB listing so that they rank on top of the search result at all time. They are equipped with staff who are knowledgeable in the complex algorithm in Google My Business. They can help you to submit your website to the local directories that are trusted by Google. These directories include authority directories like Yelp as well as other high quality directories. The local SEO company can help you to verify your business for the Google My Business listing.

They can get your customers to leave positive reviews on your GMB listing. Having a lot of positive reviews that offer more than 4 stars rating will allow your website to rank higher than other local businesses in the Google My Business search result. On top of that, the local SEO company can promote your site on the Google Plus One social media site. Google has put priority on Google Plus Ones over other social media sites. They will also promote your site on social media sites increase the ranking of your website in the search result.

What Tips Should Business Owners Follow Who Want to Do SEO Themselves

SEO optimizing your site is crucial in order to rank for any keyword on the search result. It is only when your website rank on the search result that you start to get visitors. You can save money from hiring a SEO company by optimizing the website yourself.

The basic must do on-site optimizations include adding meta title tag, and meta description. Meta title is the keyword phrase that appear on top of the web browser. Meta description should be an accurate summary of the content you are offering on the webpage. You must give a unique meta title and meta description to every single page on your website.

The title of the page must be emphasized with the H1 tag so that visitors can see them clearly. It will also be better if you use subheadings and numbered lists to outline your points in the content. If you include a picture, make sure to add the alt tag to make it easier for your image to show up in the image search result. The alt tag a floating tooltip description that appear when you hover your mouse above the image.

Long tail keyword should be used for optimizing your website content for SEO. Long tail keyword has more than 3 words and it is more specific compared to broad keywords. Short keywords get a lot of searches but it is incredibly competitive and only authority sites get to rank for them. Most people that search for long tail keywords are looking for something in specific and they tend to show more interests in buying the products.

Long tail keywords bring lesser traffic but these traffic can add up to a decent traffic when you optimize several webpages. There are lots of keyword research tools that you can use for doing research on the keywords including WordStream, Wordtracker and KeywordSpy. Paid keyword tools are better than free keyword tools and you should sign up if you can afford it.

You must not forget to set up an account at Facebook and Twitter to spread word about your products and services. After you have set up the account, you must start to get a lot of followers that are relevant to the niche. In addition, you should also write a short biography and include the complete contact information such as address and telephone in Linkedin. People who are looking to visit your store will usually think of going to Linkedin to find your address and telephone number.

You must constantly update your website with new content so that the search engine will keep coming back to crawl it. Search engines like sites that have lots of activities going on so you should consider incorporating a blog to your company site or online store. You can write the content ahead and schedule them to publish if you don’t have time.

There is no need to write a new post every day but make sure you update your blog at least once a week. It is not necessary to write text in your blog post, for example you can publish photos of your a home design if you are a home interior design company.

Keeping On Track With Your SEO Goals In 2016

The technical bits of SEO change every day. Everyone that I talk to that is trying to wrap their head around SEO is intimidated mostly by the rapid change in the industry.
However, there are a few basic rules you can bet money on when you’re dealing with Google.

Nothing Easy Works for Long

If it’s easy today, it won’t be tomorrow. Google’s actively looking for ways to improve the quality of their search results, and that generally means eliminating loopholes.As soon as you discover a tactic that produces amazing results for little effort, watch your back. Chances are you’ll find it’s not as effective.

Diversity is Just as Important as Quality

When in doubt, balance it out. An abnormal concentration of high-PR links can be just as damaging as a high concentration of low-quality links. An abnormal amount of keyword-rich links can signal spam, but using only “click here” and branded links gives you no relevance to specific keywords. The key is diversity. It’s dangerous to hang out on either side of the spectrum, and this is what tends to get new sites in trouble; they can get a lot of links from the sites of their peers, but they all tend to be in the same authority range. .

Consistency is Critical

Whether you’re talking about blog post schedules or link building, consistency is just as important as quantity. If you get a huge mass of links all at once, it can look like spam to the engines. If you blog only when the “muse” strikes you, you’ll never build a consistent audience.Be consistent. Here-and-there tactics produce spotty results. You’ll only experience true success once the winch is tightened consistently.

Half Your Job is Education

Whether you’re a consultant, an in-house SEO, or just a small business owner learning the ropes, at least half of your time will be spent telling people what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, why it’s worth it, and why everyone else should be doing it too.More often than not, you’ll find yourself educating your co-workers and clients on the ins-and-outs of SEO, so you better know your stuff.

Spread Them Eggs

Don’t put all of your traffic eggs in Google’s basket. Whether that means paying for advertising, investing in social media or growing your email list, you’ve got to diversify your traffic portfolio. If the Google gravy train derails, you’re going to have a bad time.
Whenever you can, take advantage of other sources of traffic.
The world of internet marketing changes constantly, but can you think of any other rules of thumb for SEO? Let me know in the comments!

Implementing Schema and Analytics To Rank Better In Google

SEO has sure changed over the last year, but that is a given and should come as no surprise given that Google changes its algorithm 500-600 times per year. What worked just one month ago could tank your site today. Yet there are quite a few things that still hold true and there are quite a few things you can count on working over the next year to improve your search rankings.

In today’s SEO climate you need to focus on how people interact and engage with your website. Keeping track of and understanding your website statistics is vital to success. Google provides the tools needed, but many webmasters lack the knowledge and skill to apply it, especially when it comes to evaluating the performance of site content. Google Analytics can help you with your analysis. Yet this same tool so many webmasters under utilize or have difficultly gathering enough information about their content into Google Analytics for a through analysis. Google schema and Google Tag master can easily help you achieve this.

Which brings us to the topic of Google Schema. So many webmasters do not even know what this is. Schema is a way of marking up your content for not only Google, but also other search engine providers. When you use Schema you are helping the search engines to better understand not only your content but also it’s context, which helps the search engine to better deliver your pages to people searching for the content in the search engines. Schema helps you to deliver targeted organic web traffic to your website. If you do not have Schema consider hiring a coder to add it, or if you have a word press site there are plugins that can have you up and running in minutes. Schema is pretty much the modern day equivalent of meta data tags of yesteryear’s gone by. Why is Schema important for Google Analytics? Simple it can break down content by Author, date updated, keywords, categories, genre, article id the publish date, and more. With this tool we can look at for example all articles on say SEO written by Jack Smith in Google Analytics.

Inside of Google Tag Manager you can set up custom macros to grab all itemprop schema by creating a single macro.

function() {
var metas = document.getElementsByTagName(‘meta’);
for (i=0; iExamples of custom dimensions to enter into Google Analytics:

By entering this into Google Analytics you can pull up tons of valuable data about your website with the click of a button.

Steps:

1) Add Schema
2) Create custom Macros via Google Tag manager
3) Port them to Google Analytics as Custom Dimensions or as Content Groups
4) Pull any needed information in Google Analytics via the custom macros we created.

So not only will this help your search rankings it can also help you to pull up any information about your websites content in an instant that you want to take an in depth look at.

Google Adjusts Algorithm To Favor Mobile Friendly Websites

The Impact On Google Ranking For Mobile Friendly Websites

Keeping up with with all of the nuances associated with Google’s ranking system can be quite tricky. However, staying updated is a must and knowing what changes are coming will impact your website significantly. One of the latest additions to Google’s algorithms is the implementation of potential boosts in rank for websites that are mobile friendly. This latest modification does make sense and serves a good purpose for many reasons. If your website is not up to speed with the latest responsive web designs and technology, you should definitely start making the transition to a mobile friendly site, and here are a few reasons why.

Going Mobile
In the past few years, mobile browsing has become increasingly popular and accounts for roughly 15% of all internet traffic. Smartphones and other mobile devices are a quick and easy way for consumers to get more information about products or services online. To support the recent changes in Google’s ranking algorithm, statistics show that almost 60% of people who have smartphones will not recommend doing business online with website that are not responsive or compatible with mobile devices. Therefore, not only is it a good idea to make sure your website is mobile friendly to avoid issues with Google ranking, but it is needed to stay current with the latest consumer trends.

Search Engine Optimization
Getting your website ranked higher among major search engines can be a very complicated task, especially if you are new to the world of internet marketing and SEO. With so many elements that go into determining how well your site ranks, not following search engine guidelines can be detrimental and result in losing so much potential traffic. Ease of use, access and navigation have always been a major factor in SEO. Making sure the content has a logical flow and pattern for easy navigation is very important, and is even more important on mobile devices. Response time has also played a significant role, as user tend to stray away from slow sites, and choosing a mobile responsive design that does not require large amounts of data will run much faster. Optimizing your website for peak performance, as well as, user friendliness is nothing new and if your site supports mobile browsing, you are one step ahead of the game.

Predicting the potential outcome in not having a website that is fit for mobile device users can be hard to assess. As mentioned, it is best to start making the transition in an effort to avoid potential penalties in your site rank. Most important, the new update will give your website rank a boost just for being mobile friendly, so it is only to your benefit.

You can check to see if you have a Mobile Friendly Website, using this free tool from Google: Google Mobile Friendly Test.